The top tier
candidates according to the latest national polls dominated the debate.
Summing up the total number of words spoken by Romney, Giuliani, McCain,
and Thompson, you would lead to 66.4% or about two-thirds of the debate.
Each of
those candidates fall in line with about where they stand in the polls
and in fundraisinig. Well, except for Ron Paul. He spoke the least of
all the candidates. Now, we are not going to go so far as to say he
should get as much time as Romney or Giuliani -- although it would be
fair if all the candidates spoke the same amount of time.
Last week Rep.
Ron Paul surprised the Republican field by raising $5.1 million in the
third-quarter fundraising cycle, at least 70 percent of it from online
donations. Figures provided by his campaign to The Trail shows that
the Texas congressman, who is nowhere near the top of national GOP polls,
attracted 17,461 new donors from July to September. (A point of comparison:
Aides to Mitt Romney, who leads in the early voting states of New Hampshire
and Iowa, said the former Massachusetts governor brought in 23,000 new
donors in the third quarter.)
Dr. Ron Paul of Texas
is our American sage. He merits the honorific tzu, meaning "master,"
given to the great thinkers of Chinese antiquity: K'ung Fu Tzu (Confucius),
Meng Tzu (Mencius), Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Sun Tzu and others. Ron Paul
Tzu is both a Confucian gentleman and a Taoist sage.
Dr. Paul's advocacy of
constitutional principles and the thought of the founders would gain
approval from Confucius, who said "I transmit but do not innovate;
I am truthful in what I say and devoted to antiquity (The Analects,
VII, 1)." The Paul Administration will serve to "transmit"
the ideas of our founders and their documents, which are our classics.
There will be no officials who "innovate" upon them with creative
interpretations or dismiss them as "quaint." Indeed, Dr. Paul's
strict adherence to the letter of the Constitution is reminiscent of
the Confucian devotion to the "Rectification of Names," i.e.
the restoration of original interpretations of words and the rejection
of arbitrariness. Said China's first teacher, "When words lose
their meaning, people lose their liberty (ibid. XIII, 3)."
U.S. Sen. John McCain
is one of the most famous politicians in America.
He has been running for
president off and on since 1999, has a campaign financing reform bill
named after him and is one of the most quoted political figures on big
issues like the war in Iraq.
In the last reporting
period, McCain raised about $6 million for his presidential campaign.
U.S. Rep. Ron Paul is
a relatively obscure Texas congressman who once ran for president as
a libertarian, is now running as a Republican and is stuck in single
digits in public opinion polls.
He raised $5.1 million
last quarter. Paul has $5.3 million in his campaign bank account. McCain
has $3.6 million, according to published reports.
So who is Ron Paul and
how did he raise all that money?
According to TechPresident.com,
Ron Paul dominates every other Republican candidate in the major tech
markers of online popularity. But the sports and political prognosticators
have him pegged as a 17-1 long shot.
Ron Paul has won every
online poll after every debate and debates have generally been the key
for lower tiered candidates to get their issues out to the voters. Ron
Paul is climbing slowly in the polls according to a recent post by USAElectionPolls.com
that shows him at 8% and 10% among moderates in Michigan and New Hampshire
respectively.
The Ron
Paul campaign has released a preliminary breakdown of the $5.08 million
it raised during the third quarter. The number of donors to Paul’s
campaign increased from 8,528 to 21,642. 81 percent of the third-quarter
total, or 17,461, were new contributors. With Mitt Romney's campaign
reporting 23,000 new donors in the 3rd quarter, that puts Paul in the
neighborhood of the former Massachusetts governor. Still, Romney raised
a total of $18.5 million in the third quarter, $8.5 million of which
came from one repeat donor: Romney himself.
The purpose of this article
is to take a look at why scientific polls must be unscientific in this
election(and quite possibly all others)concerning the Ron Paul Presidential
campaign.
Lets get an understanding
on how these polls work. The people polled fit into this criteria: they
must have a land-line telephone, they must be registered with the Republican
party with a prior voting history. Most of the polls offer only the
"front-runners" which must by nature be unfair. The media
and the polling companies select the front-runners through polls in
which they, in most cases, only give the front-runners as options. Hmmmm.
Since the other candidates are marked as other, they must choose a "top-tier"
candidate, unless they name another not listed. This sounds like a prime
example of media bias, where the media chooses a candidate or candidates
and pushes them as the only choices, while ignoring all others, so the
people never hear other candidates message. Thank God for the internet!
Lets get to why these polls cannot be accurate for this election.
Momentum for Paul within
the online gambling sector is growing among the more hardcore gamblers
as is evidenced at the MajorWager.com. Paul has already made it clear
to Gambling911.com that he is against online gambling prohibition.
Posters on the popular
forum, many of whom are long time professional gamblers, have taken
notice of World Sports Exchange slashing odds on Ron Paul from 26 to
1 two weeks ago down to 9 to 1 (or +900) this week, before moving back
to +1100 Thursday.
"I think one thing
should be noted, that any bookmakers who take large bets on any event,
and hence, has a lot at stake, should be taken seriously since they
are usually fairly accurate because that's there business," commented
one poster on the MajorWager forum by the name of Indio.
Whether GOP presidential
candidate Ron Paul wins the election his party’s nomination, or
the presidency itself, he is likely amassing one of the best data bases
ever of free-market names, those who have contributed to his campaign
and are willing to fund other candidates running on a Ron Paul style
platform.
In fact, this data base
may spark a resurgence, nation wide of the kind of Jeffersonian conservatism
platform – anti-war and anti-big government – on which Ron
Paul has run with increasing success thus far. “The fund raising,
straw polls and debates themselves show that there is considerable receptivity
to his message,” says one source close to the campaign.
WASHINGTON — For
several sweltering days in August, Cheryl Scott and several other Nashville
residents stood on downtown overpasses bearing eight-foot-long signs
that urged rush-hour drivers to "Google Ron Paul."
Scott's campaign is one
measure of the Internet-driven support Paul has sparked in his long-shot
bid for the presidency. He has never polled above 4% in national surveys,
according to Jeffrey Jones, managing editor of the Gallup Poll. Yet
the Republican Texas congressman's supporters helped him collect $5
million over the summer.
The second GOP star to
watch is Texas Congressman Ron Paul, a real gunslinger in the debates,
who usually finds himself defending himself from candidates like Rudy
Giuiliani for Paul's anti-war views regarding Iraq.
But Giuliani has underestimated his whipping boy, as Ron Paul has shown
himself to be a persuasive, articulate spokesman for all who have serious
questions about the origins and length of the war in Iraq. Paul has
completely surprised the political establishment by raising $5 million
in the last election cycle--more than the former front runner McCain.
While the others divide the Bush voters, Paul seems content to keep
plugging away with his Constitution-based arguments against the war.
It's an unpopular war, even among most Republicans now, so who knows
what final percentage Paul will bring with his earnest appeals for more
respect for the people and their Constitution and less government.
Wishful thinking aside,
when it comes to Iraq, Huckabee and the rest of the Republican candidates
for president, bar Ron Paul, are at odds with the American people. According
to every conceivable poll – Gallup, Rasmussen, ABC News/Washington
Post – most Americans now oppose the war in Iraq, deem it a mistake
and "support the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq within the
next year."
Paul understands this.
His stance on Iraq makes him appealing to voters from the left, the
(real) right and the center. He can thus also lower the Republican Party's
considerable attrition rates. Like or dislike him, Ron Paul is the only
Republican presidential contender whose position on Iraq comports with
that of the American people – and hence with electability.
This may surprise conservatives,
but bar Tom Tancredo, Paul is also the only candidate who'll seriously
reduce undesirable immigration. Here, as on Iraq, Americans are united.
According to the Center for Immigration Studies, "enforcement approaches
with no increase in legal immigration" were the most popular policy
options among a majority of voters. "Seventy percent of voters
said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who wanted to
double legal immigration."
More than 300 enthusiastic
supporters, most under the age of 30, turned out last night to hear
Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul discuss foreign and
monetary policy in Arlington.
"The young people
are responding very favorably to the message," Mr. Paul said in
an address to the Robert A. Taft Club, a year-old organization that
has only 35 members but drew a standing-room only crowd to the Boulevard
Woodgrill.
"People feel that
the Republican Party has abandoned those things that are important,"
Miss Drew, a senior at George Washington University and an organizer
for a Northern Virginia group of Paul supporters. She said about 80
members of her group attended the event and most brought friends.
"Dr. Paul is a wonderful
man," she said. "He's the kind of man that if you knock on
his the door of his office in Congress, you can have an instant conversation."
There is zero chance
that Ron Paul will win the Republican nomination or, after he loses,
become a major leader in the Republican party. His constituency consists
mainly of libertarian types who are either not Republicans or have not
felt at home in the Republican party for quite some time.
And unlike Dean, I think
it is pretty unlikely that Paul will endorse the eventual Republican
nominee. In fact, I suspect Republican party officials are a little
worried about Paul's plans for the general election. …If Paul
can raise his profile enough to secure himself a place in general election
debates (as Ross Perot did in 1992), he may well be tempted to accept
a third party nomination.
Dear Editor,
I enjoyed reading the
Korea Times forum article by Doug Bandow ``Are Republicans Crazy?''
He accurately focused on the one rational, principled and thoughtful
Republican candidate for President, Congressman Ron Paul. Ron Paul's
message of peace, prosperity and freedom is resonating with more people
everyday.
His dedication to the
U.S. Constitution is unique and his campaign has momentum. Just today
we learned that Americans contributed over $5 million to his campaign
in the third quarter, a 114% increase over the previous quarter and
the largest percentage increase of any Presidential candidate. He now
has over 50,000 volunteer supporters in over 950 Meetup Groups in 22
countries working for his election.
I invite readers who
are interested in learning more about Congressman Ron Paul and how to
help his campaign to join our Seoul Ron Paul 2008 Meetup Group. Just
go to http://ronpaul.meetup.com and look for the Seoul Group. Its free
of charge and we would be happy to meet you.
Ron Paul is truly hope
for America.
Sincerely,
George Whitfield
Seoul, Korea
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